Who this is for
Who gets the most from this work, who does not, and honest answers to the things people worry about before getting in touch.
Most people who get in touch open by apologising for not knowing the right words. You do not need the right words. Naming things clearly is my job, not yours.
What people actually say when they first make contact
These are the real shapes, more or less verbatim:
- "We're looking for someone to conduct an audit."
- "We need some help with... is this something you can offer?"
- "We've had some feedback about access."
- "We want to do better but we're not sure where to start."
Almost nobody uses the word disabled. It comes out as mobility concerns, or additional needs, or something even vaguer, because people are frightened of causing offence. That is not a problem and it is not a test. If you are not sure what you need or what to ask for, say that, and we will work it out on the call.
This is probably for you
- You are already trying, and you know it is not enough. You have done some work. You care. You are willing to spend money on it. You just cannot see what you are missing. This is the sweet spot and it is most of my clients.
- You have had specific feedback and it landed harder than you expected.
- You are about to spend real money on a refurbishment, a rebuild or a new website, and you want to get it right before rather than fix it after.
- You are already good and you want to be excellent. These are the most interesting jobs. When the basics are handled, the six domains get to do their actual work.
- You are a mission-driven organisation with a public-facing space: an arts venue, a heritage building, a theatre, a gallery, a museum, a charity or CIC, a council cultural service, a university with a public front door.
This is probably not for you
Said plainly so neither of us wastes a call:
- You need a document to wave at a funder or a board, and what it says does not much matter. I will write you a real report and you will not enjoy it.
- You are buying on lowest cost. There is always someone cheaper, and the market is full of automated scans sold as audits.
- You want to be told you are fine. Sometimes you are. Often you are not, and I will say so, warmly and with the fixes attached, but I will say so.
- You are at absolute zero and have not asked the question yet. Go and read something free first. There is plenty on this site and the rest of the internet, and you will get more from an audit once you have started.
The things people worry about before they get in touch
These come up almost every time. None of them is silly.
"We can't afford it"
Usually this means you do not know what it costs or what it returns. Every price is published, from £50 upward. Small arts organisations, CICs and disabled individuals pay what they can, with no justification asked. And every report puts the free fixes at the front, because there are always more of those than anyone expects.
"Our building is old, or listed"
Usually this means somebody told you it was too hard. Listed status constrains what you can change to the fabric. It constrains almost nothing about lighting, signage, acoustics, staff practice, your website, your booking process or how somebody is greeted at the door. Most of what I find in a heritage building is not structural.
"It's not our building, it's the landlord's"
Usually this means the legal split is genuinely unclear, and the result is that nobody does anything and it gets called impossible. There is a real division of responsibility and I will map it for you, including which items are yours as a tenant. An audit is also a surprisingly effective thing to put in front of a landlord.
"We've already had an audit"
Usually this means you paid for one and nothing changed. That is the commonest story in this sector and it is a failure of the report, not of you. If a report gives you a hundred findings and no order, no costs and no way to start, of course nothing happened. That is why every finding here comes with three costed options and a priority.
"We don't know where to start"
That is a normal reaction to something that looks enormous. It is also exactly what the £50 clinic is for.
"We do our best"
I know. Underneath this one is usually a worry that you are about to be told you have been harming people without realising. Here is the honest answer: you probably have been, in small ways, and so has nearly every organisation in the country, because the entire sector was trained to look at one thing out of six. That is not a moral failure. It is a design problem, and design problems have fixes.